Forbes: Google Bought YouTube, Now Trying to Make Money on It!

Forbes posted a magazine story to its site today about YouTube that includes some new revenue estimates and advertising prices. The train-of-thought piece doesn’t exactly convince me Forbes knows anything about YouTube — the main dirt/insight it seems to have is that original staffers were shuffled after Google acquired the company…well, duh.

But anyways, not to be catty — there are some actual numbers in here. Forbes says YouTube will make $200 million this year and $350 million in 2009. For reference, that’s about twice the number we’ve printed here — some $70 million to $90 million — and had corroborated by other sources.

Forbes says YouTube homepage ads cost $175,000 a day, plus a commitment to spend $50,000 more in ads on Google or YouTube. That’s a bit different from what TVWeek reported in January (a $100,000-per-day flat fee plus a $100,000 incremental spend on Google and YouTube within 90 days.) Branded channels cost $200,000, according to Forbes (TVWeek had said $250,000 across Google and YouTube, $100,000 of which must be on YouTube).